Fall Out

How walking away from toxic veteran groups was the best thing for my mental health

There are a lot of "rescuers" in the veteran community. Veterans who show up in movements to help others often do so out of selfless service, a sense of duty, and exercising courage. The values that are exalted while in uniform follow rescuers throughout their lives long after enlistment ends.

​However, we also have a special brand of people who we all knew in the military as Blue Falcons (AKA Buddy F*ckers). The veteran community is merely carrying on a tradition of coddling Narcissists, and I've had enough of the bullshit.

In September 2017, I received an email from a veteran organization inviting me to a retreat in New York. At the time, I was working as a medical social worker, I had a healthy family and social life, and things seemed to be going quite well for me in Las Vegas.

However, just below the surface, I was bubbling. The year prior where Trump won the election, I was followed by a white supremacist through my neighborhood. I wasn't armed then, and since that day I had a concealed Glock 17 on me as a precaution. Seeing bigots rejoice in the election of Mango Mussolini set off alarm bells in my outwardly stable life.

I had fought against racists and other brand of bigots my whole life to include my military career and the rampant white supremacist stench in the veteran community. This organization that reached out - let's call them Vets 4 Progress - did so in a critical time.

During one of my lunch breaks, I talked with one of the Vets 4 Progress organizers. We'll call him "Jerry." We talked for forty-five minutes over the phone and convinced me that despite my previous terrible interactions with corrupt veterans organizations, Vets 4 Progress was different. After all, they appeared to be openly anti-racist, intersectional feminist, and checked all the Progressive boxes. I agreed to fly out to New York two months later.

After spending a weekend in organizing and media training with Vets 4 Progress, I felt that I had finally found a veteran space where I belonged. For just a little over a year, I was sure that Progressive veterans were starting to emerge in cohesion to challenge the rising tide of Fascism in the US. I was wrong.

In early 2019, Sam, one of the key organizers with Vets 4 Progress, announced an abrupt departure. While the remaining three organizers, all men, at Vets 4 Progress wished her well, I knew something was wrong. Sam had hinted at a few of the other organizers of problematic behavior at other events but never got into the specifics of what had happened.

Sam's narrative was vague, but a familiar one. She had been bullied in her executive leadership position, the sole woman veteran in leadership, and she decided to leave a toxic work environment. I knew that story all too well of having to leave the Army due to toxic leaders. She said she couldn’t go into detail about the abuse she endured but one day she’d be ready to share. I could sympathize.

In Sam's departure, the community under Vets 4 Progress became fractured. Very few people came to Sam's defense. It was primarily a small group of women and non-binary veterans and a few men standing as allies. This was both concerning and elucidating the ugly truth just underneath the surface of cosmetic solidarity and performative allyship.

Most of the men in the community stood silent, bowed out, or even clung to Vets 4 Progress for financial and/or political gain. It was heartbreaking to see a community that pledged to not stand idly by in times of injustice suddenly ghost women veterans who dared to speak up about vetbro-ism in activist spaces.

First came the fights on Facebook, then anyone aligned with Sam was ostracized, including me. A group of us women and non-binary veterans took to Signal and Zoom to vent about how Sam was wronged and how all this talk of allyship from Vets 4 Progress was, in the end, purely performative.

While Sam seemed to be secretive about her next moves, occasionally chiming in on threads or Zoom, we carried on about books we were reading, love, sex, things that piss us off, our respective workplace bullshit, and everything else under the sun. It was a fractured and small group, but it was a wonderful way to vent in the fallout of Vets 4 Progress and mourn a community that had willfully failed us yet again - until Sam started to dole out orders.

At first, the asks were innocent. To write character statements on her behalf for the website that she was building, positioning herself as a solo activist, to asking us tips on how to obtain medical records of other veterans. Here were the red flags.

In the first few weeks of Sam's exit, I had previously asked about how Vets 4 Progress was handling their funding and the details of what they did - mostly to get an idea of how her Executive role was allegedly impeded by the men around her. She was tight-lipped about it, claiming to be too traumatized. I gave her some space. However, other women in the group were filling me in on their one-on-one chats with her. It appeared that as I had more questions about funding, the details of what had happened, and questioned her demands, that I was getting edged out of the group.

Finally, many of us who had bonded for months decided we should have a weekend to reconnect. At first, we thought we'd decide on the way forward by organizing a new veterans group. Sam vehemently opposed, and wouldn't say why, but most of the other veterans in our group listened dutifully.

Instead of having a convening to organize a new veteran space, and to avoid drama with Sam, we decided to make it a fun weekend trip. At the time, I had just moved to LA, and offered space to have a fun wine and art weekend where we could decompress. Sam, again chimed in to express her grief over our decision.

Sam set forth a list of demands of how to run our weekend, one in which she wouldn't even be attending or contributing to in any way, and how I needed to pay a fellow Latina veteran in the group, Mindy, a stipend for organizing the weekend I had already put together, citing she was "the most qualified to lead." Mind you, Mindy had never worked a day in her life outside of her enlistment that ended a decade earlier and lives with her parents.

The demands made no sense whatsoever, but I knew Mindy, Sam, and Whitney - all Latinx women veterans - were close and talked outside of the main thread. I then wrote a letter saying that I didn't agree with how I was being treated and that demanding I pay a Latina veteran for work that I, an Indigenous Pacific Islander, had already done was both bizarre and insulting. Sam then put pressure on others in the group not to talk to me - which I knew even before it was leaked to me.

One thing was clear: Sam was the Regina George of Mean Girls: Veteran Edition. She was calculating, self-centered, and the Narcissism that sprung forward was alarming. I had started to wonder if the fracturing that took place with her departure from Vets 4 Progress was something far more sinister. Now, she was sowing discord in this small group that had her back from the start.

Weeks later, we had a fun weekend anyway. Mindy conveniently sent an apology email to all of us in the middle of the fun, which I rolled my eyes at. Whitney, an apparent key Sam ally and Executive Director of an antiwar veterans group, and another veteran called for a Zoom chat to resolve our differences. I declined, saying I needed space. But Sam and her clique kept pushing, even to have the chat without me. So, channeling my inner asshole NCO, I agreed to get onto Zoom and hear them out and how Sam was so angry about not being able to control a "fun" weekend. I couldn't believe this was happening in yet another group of allegedly grown ass people.

Once I agreed to be in on the Zoom chat, things got quiet again, and other veterans in our small group except the Mean Girls trio started to message me in private. They told me that they were afraid of what I'd say, both in the Zoom call as well as to other people about the behavior of Sam in particular. We were starting to see some clear Narcissistic tendencies - or at least I was as a social worker - but no one in the group dared to speak up except for one. She was quickly slammed by another veteran who barely entered the conversation - and had clearly aligned with Sam - which I remembered for the call.

On the day of the Zoom call, Whitney wanted to talk and check in with me on "how I was doing" which was her not-so-subtle way of getting a temperature check on how I was going to speak with Sam in front of everyone. I thought it was hilarious and marched into Zoom allowing everyone else to speak first before unleashing my disappointment in how childish Sam and her clique and demands have made me regret standing up for her in the first place. I didn't even get into the discrepancies in the little she shared with other vets and I in separate conversations.

I was so angry that I started to cry, which only made me angrier at the fact that I had let, yet again, another group of self-serving veterans take advantage of me. And here the same culprits were again, fake-crying on camera that they were just "too busy" to reach out and apologize even though they weren't too busy to be self-promoting on social media.

Getting exploited by bearded vetbros is one thing - and it sucks - but it's far more devastating when women of color pull the same shit in Progressive clothing. And for what? Money, social capital, and power over integrity and camaraderie. The Blue Falcons strike again.

After the Zoom chat, I limited my interactions with other veterans, blocked and unfriended a shitload of people, and gave the finger to everyone around me who wasn't my actual family or part of a previous, non-veteran-centered circle.

But here's the thing about Narcissists: they never let you walk away unscathed after confronting their toxic behavior. Not even if you say nothing else. Sure, you can uplug and disengage to paint all day, but they will do everything in their power to bury you without getting caught. Even then, they have their alibis and victim card at the ready to guilt you into believing yet another fairy tale of their “courage under fire.”

When Narcissists in veteran organizer clothing started barking orders and telling me to get in formation, I chose to fall out.

Let's talk about Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In the mind of a Narcissist, genuine interpersonal connection is a foreign language. It is worthless in their quest for power, keeping all relationships purely transactional.

Narcissists have the ability to cause extensive trauma to others and damage larger movements because they execute their personal agendas quite casually. It's a series of detonations in plain sight. They're great at pretending to care as much as it takes to get you suckered into their agenda, but when your "service" is no longer needed, they don't merely let you go, they attempt to destroy you in every way they can while feigning victimhood.

The explosions of organizations and perceived bonds Narcissists leave in their wake is merely an afterthought to them. It’s not that they’re unaware of the damage their inflicting – it’s just that they don’t care.

The Dangers of Calling Foul

Realize that actual Narcissists like Sam are very unlikely to change. They’re addicted to feeding a fragile ego and will lie, cheat, smear, steal, and cry for you to surrender any morsel of validation. The addiction to social capital and access to power is tied up with their feelings of worth. They will do anything and everything they can to keep this power supply and have no regard for whom or what they harm – even the beloved movements and campaigns they claim to defend.

From gossip mills to trying to get actual Progressive combat veterans fired from Progressive campaigns, Narcissists like Sam are relentless in ensuring they are seen as the victim. Not only do they need you to believe this, you must not question it either. Otherwise, your head is added to their sociopathic chopping block.

The level of manipulation and cosplay here is quite dangerous and calling them out quickly turns you into the villain. Before you know it, they’ll be crying on Instagram Live - as Sam did against me - vaguely claiming “certain people” are viciously attacking them when all they want is to make the world a better place. Even if NO ONE is doing any attacking whatsoever. Sam has since gone on to rally other veterans to harass and attack others online, including stalking a couple of veterans who have since vanished from social media. Since parting ways, she has only gotten exponentially worse in retraumatizing the community while feigning victimhood.

​That’s how Narcissists lure people into one-on-one conversations to smear those who call foul – even in private – on their pathological behavior. Their desire to quash any truths floating to the surface is the priority as cradling their fragile ego is dependent on their charade’s survival.
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They promise to be vital to progressive movements and campaigns but don’t get it twisted. They can only deliver superficial actions – tweets, petitions, and at most sticking their nose in a camera for their personal branding collateral. So long as it doesn’t interfere with the perpetual build-up of their delusions of grandeur and “image” of being an avatar of an actual decent human being, they'll do anything to convince you that they're a diamond in the rough and that you should financially back their cause.

The Path to Finding Peace

In the end I found peace of mind when I decided to sever ties with people who drained my energy by dragging me into their petty squabbles. As Dr. Ramani mentions in the video above, people who are "rescuers" often fall for the Narcissist's pleas for help - often because we know what's it's like to not receive it when we've needed it most.

To have come to someone's side in a time of trouble and ending up being both lied to and used, was devastating. To experience a small group of veterans grifting and hurting people with impunity - especially other women of color hurting other women of color - was such a colossal mind-fuck that it reopened so much complex trauma and literally landed me in therapy.

As soon as the PTSD Pandora's box was open, I knew I was in trouble. While working as a social worker in Los Angeles at the time was already taking its toll on my psyche, the entire experience of dealing with a Narcissist in veteran clothing was all it took for the very last nail to be removed from the lid holding it all below the surface. I began having Iraq-era and childhood nightmares again and felt the need to isolate. I quit working, withdrew from plans with friends, and felt the all-too-familiar feeling of an interminable night creeping in.

Setting up an appointment with the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles was a frightening step. For over a decade, I had experienced nothing but gaslighting from VA providers on my combat experience and trauma. But, now I didn't have health insurance outside of VA and no additional income. I had to take the leap.

Fortunately, mental health at the Greater Los Angeles VA was supportive. After my intake at the outpatient clinic, the providers decided to not send me to the women's clinic for treatment, which was predominantly Military Sexual Trauma (MST)-focused and not something I had experienced in service. Instead, they kept my counseling in the PTSD clinic, which was predominantly male.

As soon as I met my main provider, we talked about racism I experienced in service and while she was a white woman, she at least had some familiarity with Pacific Islander culture. I told her I didn't expect her to completely "get" everything about NHPI culture. I just needed someone to listen - and she did.

​For the following months before I moved to the UK, I saw her every two weeks and ended my last few months in the US undergoing intensive therapy to draw out everything from childhood trauma to combat to an additionally traumatic homecoming.

We talked about how "rescuing" others can sometimes be honorable, but reminded me that I hadn't had much opportunity to put myself first. When you view your role in life as saving other people, it's easy to lose sight of taking care of your own needs.

After years of having my service denied by the VA and that I wasn't living with PTSD, I was finally being treated for it and being listened to in an unobstructed environment. This changed everything.

After over 30 years of having to rescue myself from danger, suck it up, and call it "resilience," someone was finally coming to my aid.

​After all, this is why I became good at "rescuing" people in trouble, anyone who needed help in the worst times because all too often - from a tumultuous childhood in the US South to dealing with white supremacists in the military, combat, and domestic violence - I knew what it felt like to have no one come to my rescue.

It was no surprise I had thrived in careers where my job was to help pull people out of their personal hell. I lived for righting wrongs for others that hadn't been done for me.

When I quit worrying about what would be said behind my back by those who had caused so much harm, it seemed to be unimportant as to who believed me or not. If one was gullible enough to believe a handful of people who grift on social justice tweets and fluff up their experiences to continue to con people for money – and not ask questions – then their ignorance was none of my business. And the people who truly are meant to be in my life will at least ask for my side of the story. It's very clear to me now where everyone stands.

As I write this now in London, I'm happy to say that I've stopped putting my neck out for those who weren't doing the same for me. Even though I've disengaged from those veteran circles, I occasionally get a message passed my way of ongoing smear campaigns to isolate me as Sam, Whitney, and their minions brand themselves as hapless victims. I found peace of mind when I stopped fighting to be understood by people who were committed to misunderstanding me. When dealing with Narcissists, the absolute best thing you can do is walk away.

Narcissists are interpersonal terrorists. There's no negotiating with them.

While I know the Regina Georges of the veteran community will not likely be held accountable anytime soon not only for the organizations and movements they’ve tanked on their way to failing up top in identity politics, I’ve also realized that it doesn’t matter. Many of us who have been hurt by Narcissists in the Progressive veteran community found our way back in therapy have realized a silver lining in self-care.

Ironically, after the whole Sam shitshow went down, other people she and her clique had victimized reached out to me over social media and email. They asked how I was doing and told me how their path to healing was going, often involving going back to therapy. I try to be understanding, and listen, but I won't commit to anything having to do with the community.

When we put our well-being first, there's a lot less space for Narcissists to traipse in and implode one's life.

In the meantime, the same sociopaths in veterans organizations are still hustling. Posting pictures of themselves canvassing, calling themselves "combat veterans" when they're definitely not, showing up in protests for selfies, and kissing the ass of anyone who can give them more Twitter followers - the list goes on. It's nauseating, so I blocked it all out. I already knew it was all a sham and there was no point in reminding myself of the ongoing fauxgressive performance art. They're still predators and no one in the veteran community is currently doing anything to hold them accountable.

When it comes to making a difference, we don’t need to contort ourselves for toxic leaders and their fragile egos or problematic organizational structures that are too milquetoast to get their shit together. We can continue to work on what matters and do what we’re good at, allowing everything to eventually come out in the wash in its own time.

Instead of trying to rescue a dysfunctional community, it was time to focus on taking back my power after being used and retraumatized again. I knew I needed to create distance between myself and others in a way that was beneficial to me. It felt bizarre, even selfish, to draw this extreme of a boundary.

Now? My painting, creating, and writing projects are all back on track and have enough distance to where I feel safe while contributing to a greater good. I'm working out more, being far more selective in taking meetings, and instead of committing so much time to boost the work of others, I'm focusing on my own projects and passions without a care as to what anyone thinks.

In time, I believe that every single one of the grifters will be seen for who they really are, and no amount of public weeping will save them from the consequences. After mourning the loss of a community I thought was for me, in the end, walking away from it all was the very best thing I could've done. Taking back my time, energy, and heart opened up a path to healing complex trauma that I had needed for years. In redirecting my passions, I've never been happier. All it took was telling myself to "fall out" of a toxic formation.